By the time I arrived at the destination following Pae Ucheol’s guidance.
I saw an unfamiliar carriage had entered the campsite.
Seeing the carriage that looked inexplicably battered, and the horse panting heavily as if utterly exhausted.
It seemed the carriage had been driven quite roughly.
‘…Isn’t that horse going to die?’
The horse looked like it could drop dead at any moment.
Judging by its muscle condition and the aura it exuded, it was clearly a horse of excellent quality.
Just how badly do you have to drive a carriage to end up like that? I walked on, looking at the panting horse with pity.
Walking a bit further, I saw a familiar face.
It was Murong Xiya, collapsed and clutching the carriage as if exhausted.
What is she doing over there…?
At that sight, I cautiously approached and asked her.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Y-Young master… Uurk…”
Murong Xiya’s condition was far from good.
Her hair was disheveled, and her originally beautiful features looked almost haggard.
What. Did she get motion sickness?
‘No way.’
Murong Xiya was a martial artist who had reached first-class level in her own right. There was no way mere motion sickness would reduce her to this state.
“Are you okay…?”
“No….”
“Right, you don’t look okay.”
What could have happened to bring her to this state.
“…”
I watched silently, then approached slightly and knelt on one knee.
When I suddenly met her gaze, Murong Xiya looked at me as if asking what was wrong.
I reached out and gently brushed aside the hair covering Murong Xiya’s cheek.
Whether because of the cold sweat, the way it was stuck tight to her face was quite unpleasant.
“…!”
Maybe that was the problem. Murong Xiya’s eyes widened instantly.
Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she suddenly snatched my hand away from her cheek.
“What is this?”
“Hm…?”
Caught off guard by having my hand grabbed, I looked at Murong Xiya with a bewildered expression.
“This… What is this?”
“What do you mean?”
I asked with some puzzlement at Murong Xiya’s sudden behavior, but her reaction didn’t subside in the slightest.
She said to me.
“Why are you suddenly flirting with me?”
“What?”
What kind of insane nonsense was that all of a sudden? Who was flirting with whom?
“No… What is it really? Did you eat something bad?”
“If anyone ate something bad, it’s you…? Don’t you have a fever or something?”
When I tried to lightly touch her forehead, Murong Xiya flinched in surprise and backed away.
“W-Why are you really like this.”
“…No.”
“Did something happen…? Are you hurt somewhere?”
I wondered why she was reacting so frantically. Just why was she acting like that?
Just when I was wondering if my behavior was somehow strange.
‘Hm.’
Sensing something odd, I took a little distance from Murong Xiya myself.
Because the thought had crossed my mind that the gap between us had grown a bit too narrow.
‘This is.’
Was it because I had realized, during my last conversation with the Poison King, that these kids had already gotten inside me?
Was it because I had become aware of the possessiveness I held toward them?
My behavior seemed to have grown somewhat strange.
‘I need to be careful.’
Recalling that, my stomach churned on its own.
A feeling of unnecessary self-loathing came flooding over me.
It wasn’t time yet.
‘It isn’t time yet.’
I repeated inwardly.
That no matter what it was, I shouldn’t grab it with my hands and hold it to my chest yet.
Leaving the exhausted-looking Murong Xiya behind, I stood up.
‘I heard the White Lotus Sword had arrived as well.’
Since Murong Xiya seemed to have arrived safely, I felt I could finally set aside my worries.
Now that a superior had come, I should greet them first. I would ask the attendants to let Murong Xiya rest, and I thought I should go find the White Lotus Sword first.
Just as I was getting my bearings to move. I turned back, looked at Murong Xiya, and left some words.
“Come to me tonight.”
“…!”
After leaving those words, I disappeared to find the White Lotus Sword, and Murong Xiya, left alone, looked in the direction he had disappeared with a hollow expression.
The young man she met after so long somehow felt a little different.
That different feeling was much hotter than she had expected, leaving her flustered.
Moreover.
‘What the hell… really.’
Murong Xiya knew those words carried no special meaning.
Since it was about time to receive his heat. He had called her for that reason, but.
—Come to me tonight.
The sensation she got from those words was incredibly subtle.
If he had spat that out intentionally, it would have felt quite unpleasant, but Murong Xiya knew he wasn’t someone who would do such a thing.
Because of that, all the more.
“…Anyway, he’s such an unfair person.”
For many reasons, it was displeasing.
******************
Finding the White Lotus Sword wasn’t very difficult.
The fact that Pae Ucheol had already come to deliver a message meant the White Lotus Sword had moved immediately upon arrival.
Since the carriage had arrived, by that logic there would be only one place she would go.
Since it was the natural course of action to head to the leader of the group, the White Lotus Sword must have gone to the Poison King.
Thinking so, I headed to where the people of Tangmen were gathered.
Sure enough. I saw an incongruous figure mixed in around the Poison King.
Furthermore.
“It’s been a while!”
The voice that rang out was extremely loud.
My gaze shifted.
To the woman facing the Poison King, laughing excitedly with a “Hahaha—!”
The woman looked no different from when we had first met.
“Should I call you the Tang Patriarch now?”
At the woman’s—the White Lotus Sword’s—words, the Poison King merely smiled, looking somewhat bewildered.
“Long time no see, White Lotus Sword.”
“I heard the news that you became the Patriarch.”
“That was already over a decade ago, however…”
When the Poison King let out a dumbfounded reply, the White Lotus Sword smiled awkwardly.
“I’m not very interested in worldly affairs by nature.”
“That aside. May I ask what brings the White Lotus Sword here?”
Why have you come here. The Poison King thus asked the White Lotus Sword.
Hearing the question, the White Lotus Sword tilted her head.
She had an expression as if asking why he was asking something so obvious.
“It’s nothing much. My child said they were anxious about traveling a long way, so they sent me as an escort.”
“…You, as an escort?”
“Yes.”
The Poison King looked at her somewhat dubiously.
I felt like I would have done the same. It was inevitably strange to hear that a figure of the White Lotus Sword’s level was coming as an escort.
‘Did she come as Murong Xiya’s escort?’
Of course, it wasn’t a situation where the Poison King could say anything about it.
There was nothing to dissuade or object to anyway.
A martial artist of the White Lotus Sword’s caliber would be helpful for the transport, so from the Poison King’s perspective, it wasn’t a bad addition, but.
‘He looks quite reluctant.’
I didn’t know what kind of person the White Lotus Sword was, but I could tell she was an unusual enough figure to make the Poison King react that way.
To see such an expression from the Poison King, who seemed skilled at politics… Just what on earth did the White Lotus Sword go around doing?
“Anyway, that’s how it is, so take good care of me.”
“…”
What did she mean, anyway, that’s how it is.
As I slowly approached and listened, the flow of the conversation was quite strange.
‘Is that person really of the Murong family’s bloodline?’
For a member of the Murong family, characterized by eccentric and calculating behavior, she felt completely unpredictable.
Her appearance definitely fit that lineage.
Why was she the complete opposite of her looks? No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t understand.
“Ah, and… oh.”
The White Lotus Sword, who had been chatting with the Poison King to her heart’s content, seemed to sense a presence and turned her gaze this way.
Perhaps that was why; regardless of the fact that she was in conversation with the Poison King, the White Lotus Sword instantly approached me.
“Hello!?”
She came right up to me and shouted like that.
My ears were ringing from such an energetic greeting.
“We know each other, right?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to her question, asked with a bright grin.
“Hello. Senior.”
At my words, the White Lotus Sword furrowed her brows as if displeased about something.
“Your form of address is still so stiff, isn’t it? I told you to call me Noona.”
“That’s a bit…”
Calling a lady my father’s age “Noona” was a bit too conscienceless, no matter how you looked at it.
‘Besides.’
For what reason might she have come?
Did she really come as an escort because of a request from the Baekcheon Sword Lord?
I didn’t truly think so. It seemed there was some other reason.
‘It’s not my place to worry about that.’
I didn’t think it was my business to look that far into it.
Though looking at the White Lotus Sword reminded me of Gu Huibi, which made me reluctant.
She didn’t seem like a bad person, judging by her vibe.
I could just keep an appropriate distance.
Just as I was thinking that and about to nod.
“Then, I’m counting on you from now on.”
“Yes… I should also take good c… huh?”
I had to make a puzzled expression at the White Lotus Sword’s words.
Counting on me? For what?
“What do you mean?”
“Hm? I told you earlier. That I came as an escort.”
“Yes, I heard you, but.”
What did that have to do with me.
Whether the White Lotus Sword came as an escort or not. That had nothing to do with me.
“What does that have to do with what you said…”
“Of course it does.”
The White Lotus Sword giggled at my words and answered thus.
“I came as your escort. Then who else would I be talking to?”
“What?”
At those shocking words, a feeling like my soul was slipping out of my body flashed through me.
The person the White Lotus Sword was escorting wasn’t Murong Xiya?
Furthermore.
“…Me?”
She came all this way to escort me, of all people? What the hell did that mean?
As I looked at the White Lotus Sword with a dumbfounded expression, she looked at me with the same smile as ever.
“So. Take care of me? Nephew-in-law.”
Because the previous words were so shocking, I didn’t even properly register the address that followed.